“Nice. Thanks.”
I take the box and kiss her again. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
“See you later,” she says cheerfully as I close the door behind me and follow Rocco to his car.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand when I climb into the rental.
“No idea,” he says and stuffs half the donut into his mouth. After he swallows, he continues. “Got a call from Shane. Thirty minutes later, I was in the chopper headed here.”
“Where’s it parked?”
“Not far. We’ll be at Shane’s in an hour.”
I feel sick after lying to Nadia.
We arrive at an airstrip where the chopper is waiting for us. Rocco and I climb in, buckle up, and he checks gauges and flips switches. When we have our headsets on, we take off.
The air over the high Rockies is choppy, so the ride is rough, but it doesn’t take long before we land about a hundred yards from Shane’s house on his property near Victor, Colorado.
As an old mining town in the mountains, Victor used to host more than a hundred thousand people. But now that most of the gold is gone, aside from the last few plots that large corporations own, the town has shrunk to just a couple of hundred people.
Just the way Shane likes it.
How he can live at ten thousand feet, in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea. The air is thin as hell, and it always takes me a day or two to get used to being up this high.
Rocco cuts the engine, and we get out of the helicopter and jog to the house where Shane’s standing just outside his door, arms folded across his chest.
“Saved you a donut,” Rocco says as he passes the box to Shane. “Your favorite.”
“One?”
“Better than none,” Rocco replies and shrugs as we follow our brother into the big farmhouse.
Shane’s property is a fortress. Sitting on a few hundred acres, it’s surrounded by state-of-the-art security with cameras and alarms. He has all kinds of toys, weapons, and other equipment that I probably don’t want to know about, in addition to the helipad.
He leads us through a honey oak kitchen and the dining and living spaces, which all look completely normal. Fancy, but normal.
Then, he passes through a doorway and procedes down a long flight of stairs. When he flips on the lights, we’re no longer in a simple farmhouse.
We’re in a headquarters.
Machines beep and computers cover several desks. There are phones, screens, maps.
It’s all very James Bond.
Or, Shane Martinelli.
“I got home a couple of days ago and was finally able to start digging into that slimeball, Richard,” he begins with a donut in his mouth. “It was right there, in front of our faces the whole goddamn time.”
“What was?” I demand.
“Let me start at the beginning.” He flips on a screen, and it fills with a photo of Richard. “This asshole isn’t Richard Donaldson at all. It’s a cover. One that was well crafted, by the way. But it was thin. They didn’t add layers, so I didn’t have to dig far to discover that he’s a phony. If Alex Tarenkov had done his job, it would have been harder to find. But, more on that in a minute.”
He clicks a button, and data starts scrolling across the screen.
“Dimitri Lebedev.” I turn to Shane in shock. “He’s Russian?”
“Oh, he definitely is. But he was born in New York City in 1987. His parents were KGB spies in the seventies and early eighties and came to the US for asylum. The fucking government gave it to them in exchange for some information. You know, we were dealing with the Cold War at that time, and I’m sure they had plenty of secrets to share.
“So, our boy Dimitri was raised here in the US. Went to college at NYU. Smart kid, majored in PoliSci. Guess who his roommate was?”
Rocco and I stare at him. “Who?”
“Alexander Tarenkov.”
Shane clicks some keys and some photos of the two men show up on the screen.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter.
“So, these two were buddies in college. How Annika didn’t know that, I have no idea. Because from what I’ve heard, Annika and Alex always got along well. Maybe Alex wasn’t the type to bring his bestie from college home for the holidays. Maybe he knew if he brought Dimitri around his father, there would be trouble given that Dimitri’s parents were KGB agents and all. But that’s all speculation.”
“We’ll have to ask him,” Rocco says.
“Wait a minute. If these are his parents”—I point to the couple on the screen—“who were the people at the wedding who claimed to be Rich’s family?”
We all look at each other, and then Shane shrugs. “They were hired to act the part. This whole thing was a cover. But not for Dimitri.”
“For Alex,” Rocco finishes.
“Bingo. Whatever this jerk’s into, it goes deep, and it’s been going on for a long time. He had one arrest in college for dealing, but it was just some weed. Those records were buried. I assume thanks to his father.”
“But the Tarenkovs don’t deal,” I say, shaking my head. “Nadia told me herself that drugs aren’t their game.”
“And I buy that,” Shane says, continuing. “Igor has always been adamant that their family isn’t into the drug game. But that doesn’t mean that Alex isn’t.”
“I need to ask Nadia—”
“Look, I know you’re in love with her. Jesus, it’s all over your face. But you need to tread carefully here,” Shane interrupts, turning to me. “Because I have reason to believe that she’s in on it with him.”
No. Absolutely not. Everything in me wants to rail at him in anger, punch him in the fucking face for even suggesting that the woman I love is connected to this.
But I don’t.
I wait.
Shane clicks more keys, and the photos on the monitor shift to ones of Nadia and Alex.
“These were taken just six months ago in Atlanta,” Shane says.
The two of them are walking down the street together, laughing.
“The Tarenkovs are based in Atlanta,” I remind him, but my gut is still in knots. Nadia hates her brother.
So why then is she in all of these photos with him, looking as close as two siblings can be?
“The point is, we don’t know, Carmine. She could be playing you. She could be double-crossing you.”
I remember what the goon in Cannes said: “She’ll just double-cross you, man. That’s what she does.”
Fuck, has Nadia been playing me this whole time? I’ve been falling in love with her, and she’s been playing me?
“Take me back.” I march toward the steps, my heart pounding. I need to get to Nadia. I need to look her in the eyes when I confront her about this. “Right now, Rocco.”
“We’re all going,” Shane says, shutting down the equipment in a rush and then running after us. “Goddamn it, slow down. I have to lock up.”
“This place is a fucking fortress. No one even knows it’s here.”
“I know,” he mutters before we all jog out to the waiting helicopter.
“I’m going in alone.” Rocco doesn’t even pull into the driveway, he just pulls up to the curb. “I’ll come to the office after I’m done confronting her.”